On Jan. 18, 1863, troops from the 64th North Carolina Infantry under the command of Lt. Col. James Keith lined up 13 men and boys, ranging in age from 13 to 60, made them kneel and shot them at point-blank range. Then the soldiers tossed the bodies into a shallow grave, from where they were later reclaimed by family members for burial.

This incident in Madison County, N.C., known to history as the Shelton Laurel massacre, was hardly the worst example of violence visited on civilian populations during the Civil War. On Aug. 21, 1863, scarcely a month after the murders in North Carolina first received national press coverage, the Confederate guerrilla leader William C. Quantrill led a raid on Lawrence, Kan., that killed 183 men and boys.

But Shelton Laurel provides an especially compelling look at the internecine war between Confederate authorities and pro-Union sympathizers in the mountains of western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee. Madison County sits on the border with Tennessee and in 1863 was incredibly isolated...

The county also featured one of the states sharpest political divides over the issue of secession... it stemmed from an amalgam of class resentment against the slave owners and tenant farmers who had supported secession; a deeply engrained rural suspicion of urban places; and a widespread feeling that the wealthy were threatening hard-working common people.

The Unionism of Western North Carolina was less a love for the Union than a personal hatred of those who went into the Rebellion. It was not so much an uprising for the government as against a certain ruling class.

I did a non-thesis graduate program where I did an independent study of the Civil War in the Appalachian region. A fine mess- most people in the mountains supported the Union, and there was warfare among those who did and did not, with the Confederate government attempting to enforce its will with only limited success; and on top of that, lawless individuals taking opportunity to kill and plunder. A lot of folks who fly a Rebel flag in their yard or on their truck have no idea their ancestors might not have done so....

13
posted on 01/21/2013 6:15:45 AM PST
by GenXteacher
(You have chosen dishonor to avoid war; you shall have war also.)

Well, well well. That makes three of us. Only it was my maternal Great Grandfather. Fourth Corporal Alexander P. Bradley (1846-1932) of the 12th Mississippi Cavalry. Age 15 in 1861. And two GG uncles that are buried in the Confederate Cemetary at Brices Cross Roads. No mass grave there like at Shiloh.

One of my Dad’s family rode with McNeil’s raiders who crossed the Potomac I think in early 1864 and captured General Crook and held him for a short time for ransom. He took the General’s sidearm a Whitney dragoon and I still have it in very good condition. Its been handed down in our family ever since. Someday I will pass it on to my nephew.

17
posted on 01/21/2013 7:21:58 AM PST
by Georgia Girl 2
(The only purpose of a pistol is to fight your way back to the rifle you should never have dropped.)

There are several gravestones at a small cemetery near here that say the person was “Killed by Bushwackers” in the 1860s.

There is a spot less than a mile from me where several men were murdered by “PIN” Indians from Oklahoma. Many years ago a local Hardware owner (now deceased) said his grandfather had to hide out in the brush north of town because of the constant prowling of bushwackers in this area.

In the Civil War, pro Union Indians were given to killing any white MAN they found in this area.

Tupelo: "Well, well well. That makes three of us. Only it was my maternal Great Grandfather...."

First of all, I have seen the historical marker at the intersection of NC 208 and 218. Some of my relatives there, and their neighbors, have family connections to the victims. Even to this day they are not so friendly to outsiders. ;-)

For those whose ancestors rode with Nathan Bedford Forest, one of my great-grandfathers fought against him -- on the losing side in October 1862, at Rutherford Station, Mobile & Ohio Railroad (northwest of Memphis, Tennessee), on the winning side in July 1864, at Tupelo, Mississippi.

I have the greatest personal respect for Forest, precisely because, when he had the opportunity, he did not do to my ancestor's unit as Keith did in North Carolina. Indeed, I believe Forest's good behavior at Rutherford Station was returned in July 1864, at the battle of Tupelo, when Forest reconnoitering, rode right through a Union unit at night (much like Stonewall Jackson), but Forest escaped unharmed.

One good turn deserved another, I think. And the key point to remember is that Forest's behavior was more the rule, Keith's the rare exception.

To be perfectly fair, the various CSA invasions of northern territory were generally better-behaved than those of the Union, particularly Sherman’s troops.

With the notable and obvious exceptions of the raid on Lawrence and similar actions by irregulars. But those were part of the “dirty war” in the border states carried out by irregulars, where atrocities were a lot more common than by regular troops of either side.

In fact, even at Lawrence the raiders are reported to have tipped their hats to the ladies before tossing their bound husbands and sons into the burning buildings.

Ran across an interesting article about Sherman’s March and how destructive it was in reality vs. myth.

Contemporary accounts are unanimous that SC suffered much more than GA or (particularly) NC, which doesn’t line up well with the mythology of the March across Georgia being all-destroying. If they destroyed everything in GA, how could they destroy a lot more in SC?

I do know that some of Sherman’s soldiers were hanged for rape, which doesn’t line up with such behavior being encouraged.

The Union Industrialists of the North who owned Lincoln and resented the competition of Southern slave labor and the Southern politicians in the pockets of the wealthy slave owning planters made the war about slavery.

Fully 98% of both countries did not care one bit about slavery.

After enough Yankee soldiers were killed the survivors, their comrades, just wanted revenge and they didn't care for what cause—they wanted blood and the bodies of their hated enemies women...

The Red Army in East Germany during WWII is the best comparison.

36
posted on 01/22/2013 7:28:41 AM PST
by Happy Rain
("Banning guns over Adam Lanza would be like banning speech over Bill Maher.")

"The Union Industrialists of the North who owned Lincoln and resented the competition of Southern slave labor and the Southern politicians in the pockets of the wealthy slave owning planters made the war about slavery" A agree. The war was started by the politicians who were "owned" by the interests of the wealthy. The average, non slave owning southerner was fighting to keep his homeland from being invaded. One example for support of slavery as the root cause can be found in the money printed by confederate states and southern private banks during the war. Symbolism adorning money most often enshrines the highest, most sacred institutions of a culture. Many banks offered money adorned with slave scenes.

You contradict yourself—printed money presented the symbols of the government and the wealthy elite “culture” who financed their purchasing power and never represented the popular culture of the American people of the South.

98% percent of the Americans fighting against the Blue Scum Belly Union thug invaders had their own culture-one enshrined by Jamestown, Charleston, Savannah and New Orleans—that of defending their homes from war criminal bastards following the orders of avarice-ridden imperial Big Government fascist sons of bitches.

40
posted on 01/22/2013 10:35:15 AM PST
by Happy Rain
("Banning guns over Adam Lanza would be like banning speech over Bill Maher.")

Not surprising since it is purely oral history and rape in the old South went unreported to the officials because of the social stigma attached.

Margaret Michell knew from such histories about the “Bummers” aka looters, murderers and rapists who followed the Union Armies and included one in her “Gone With The Wind.”

To admit to having been raped by a Yankee (one step below an orangutan) would have destroyed the social life of any respectable white Southern woman forever...the bragging of the rapists is but oral history as well since the liberal Yankee media spikes any information detrimental to their agenda--even to this day.

We who have ancestors who went through the war know what happened.

42
posted on 01/22/2013 11:14:02 AM PST
by Happy Rain
("Banning guns over Adam Lanza would be like banning speech over Bill Maher.")

"Sherman and Sheridan Blue Scum Bellies bragged for years that most the babies born in the South after the war were probably half Yankee (and not by choice)."

I'm wondering where you got the allegation that there was any bragging .. or anything else of the like .. on the part of soldiers or officials of the Union Army, as I have never seen the like of that in any of the documentation.

Sorry, I ran out of time and didn't do a proper job of it. Will try again, at some point.

Sherman Logan: "To be perfectly fair, the various CSA invasions of northern territory were generally better-behaved than those of the Union, particularly Shermans troops."

I don't agree, for the following reasons:

Union troops were normally self-sufficient and did not "live off the land" as a matter of course. Cases where they did were relatively rare, and concentrated toward the war's end.

By contrast, Confederate troops were almost never self-sufficient, and always needed to forage and "live off the land". This was true even in the South, where troops usually "paid" with near-worthless Confederate money. But once outside the Confederacy itself, such money was not "near-worthless", it was absolutely worthless, meaning Confederate armies were always pillaging, even if they claimed otherwise.

The actual record of army murders and rapes of civilians -- Union or Confederate -- is small to non-existant.The biggest single event I could find was Confederate Quantrill's August 1863 Lawrence Massacre, which murdered about 200 Union men and boys in Kansas, and burned down the town. This was a full year before Sherman's March to the Sea, and before any record I can find of murders or city-burning by Union Forces.

So I conclude that Confederate Quantrill's Lawrence Massacre killed more Union civilians than all Union forces killed in the Confederacy throughout the war.

Sherman Logan: "Ran across an interesting article about Shermans March and how destructive it was in reality vs. myth."

Thanks for the link, it makes the point very well.

Sherman Logan: "Contemporary accounts are unanimous that SC suffered much more than GA or (particularly) NC..."

Important to point out that not all the destruction -- whether real or fanciful -- was done by Sherman:

"With his supply lines fully severed, [Confederate General John Bell] Hood pulled his troops out of Atlanta the next day, September 1, [1864] destroying supply depots as he left to prevent them from falling into Union hands. He also set fire to eighty-one loaded ammunition cars, which led to a conflagration watched by hundreds.[15]."

Happy Rain: "We who have ancestors who went through the war know what happened."

In years after the Civil War, many personal histories were added to newspaper and other contemporary reports of the war. All of these have been scoured by generations of historians looking to find evidence of mass murders & rapes, etc.

None have been found. I conclude therefore that such claims are somewhat, ahem, exaggerated.

Family legend is not always entirely historically accurate. See Miss Pocahontas Elizabeth Warren.

Will probably p*ss off an entirely new group by bringing it up, but family history used to cement group identities has a habit of developing hyperbolically.

Perhaps the classic example is the story of "No Irish Need Apply," for which there is an entire mythology of how it was universal in newspaper employment ads, on "Help Wanted" signs in windows, etc. throughout the country. So common that it was often just the acronym NINA. Shows how oppressed the Irish were in America.

So a professor decided to research just how common it was. After going through many thousands of newspaper pages throughout the century, hundreds of thousands of ads, he found less than 10 examples. Don't remember the exact number.

The legend continues to exist and creates hostility if its accuracy is challenged, despite almost zero evidence of its truth.

Same with the stories of mass rape of southern women. Bet you anything the family histories don't have their women being raped, just everybody else's.

BTW, wouldn't blaming the southern woman for her own rape by Union soldiers lean a bit in the Islamist honor-killing direction?

Margaret Michell knew from such histories about the Bummers aka looters, murderers and rapists who followed the Union Armies and included one in her Gone With The Wind.

Quite right. Deserters from both armies, southern criminals and others no doubt took advantage of helpless people and preyed on those in the wake of the armies. As despicable predators always have. My understanding is that when caught, both armies hanged them.

Although not a great film by any means, Ride with the Devil looks at the Civil War in Missouri, and how easy it is for groups to start committing atrocities, and how hard it is to stop. Atrocity begets counter-atrocity, which begets counter-counter-atrocity, and soon not even those involved, on either side, can explain what particular atrocity they attempting to avenge when they commit a new atrocity.

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